USE OF CLIMATE MAPS IN DETERMINING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AREAS

Abstract

Global warming, climate change and sustainability are important issues in our day. Agriculture has activities related with climate, has adverse impacts on and is adversely impacted by climate change. Agriculture is an important element with regard to the economic and environmental sustainability of countries. Many factors such as slope, aspect, elevation, drainage, soil structure are effective in determining agricultural areas. Climate is one of these factors. Spot climate data which is among the natural data used for determining agricultural areas and type of agriculture cannot be used in overlay processes with other data which makes it necessary to generate climate maps. It is preferred to generate climate maps using methods that enable the areal distribution of these spot data for a more effective and accurate result. Inverse distance weighting (IDW), Kriging and Cokriging, are among the methods that are preferred for this purpose. In the present study, long-term average temperature, humidity and rainfall data acquired from 71 meteorological stations at the cities of Bartin, Bolu, Karabuk, Kastamonu and Zonguldak located in Western Black Sea region of Turkey have been included. ArcGIS 10.2 software and Inverse Distance Weighting Technique which enable the areal distribution of spot data were used to generate climate maps in order to determine suitable areas with the acquired climate data.